Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Quartz
Label: Skol Records
Release: 2016
Runtime: 48:56
Rating: 3.5/5
This review arrives a touch late, but I’m declaring it a tribute to the late keyboardist of this legendary Birmingham NWOBHM band, Geoff Nicholls, who passed away at the end of January 2017. Nicholls made his name in the eighties, when, after Quartz fell apart, he joined Black Sabbath, the infamous pioneering outfit that also hails from Birmingham.
»Fear No Evil«, which Geoff Nicholls graced with his musical stamp one last time, is only the third studio album from a band that once flew the flag for the New Wave of British Heavy Metal. They put out their studio debut »Stand Up And Fight« in 1980, followed by its successor »Against All Odds« in 1983. Then Quartz split up, only to get back together in 2011.
»Fear No Evil« is an album packing a whopping thirteen tracks. And the verdict? Feelings are a bit mixed. The retro sound and the retro songwriting rhetoric of classically formatted heavy rock and heavy metal tunes are undeniable, and the album carries that proper old-school flavor in its production too, but on the flip side it stumbles here and there when it comes to ideas. The songs can’t exactly boast consistency, so »Fear No Evil« wobbles a bit in how it feels. Not that it’s a bad album, far from it, but it doesn’t grab you all that convincingly, since some songs too often bring Black Sabbath to mind (Stalker).
The opening is hugely promising: the title track puts Quartz exactly where you’d expect, and hope, to find a legendary band’s album in 2017. It carries that well-known vibe that plays nostalgically with our emotions, while at the same time delivering a musical dossier all its own. Quartz quickly remind us that they know all the tricks of building songs around riffs, the way their contemporaries Saxon did (Scream at the Devil), or the slightly older Judas Priest, and further in the guys often reach even for what Ozzy Osbourne was doing in the early eighties, or what Black Sabbath did later, especially when Tony Martin was singing for them (Walkin’ On Holy Water).
You can hear it in the riffs, the solos and the guitar tone (a fat Gibson SG sound with extremely heavy, piercing qualities), and in places in the vocals of David Garner (ex-Lucifer), except that these days you’d badly wish to hear the »Prince of Darkness« with at least a smidge of the vocal power Garner shows off on »Fear No Evil«.
Well, between that hugely promising title track and the unbelievably expressive, special moment of the album, the one Quartz deliver with the song Zombie Ressurection, where Garner stretches out into more vocal variety and finally shows off his outstanding vocal chops, you’ll find gems like Rock Bottom. That song isn’t just named the same as one of the most recognizable moments of UFO’s career, the guitar phrase leading it is also incredibly similar to the Rainbow classic Kill the King. In the history of rock and metal quite a few bands have »borrowed« that Rainbow riff. A moment like that on the album therefore jars while listening. The song Riot in the City is even comparable to Black Sabbath’s later »Tony Martin era« output. It features an impressive keyboard part from Geoff Nicholls, which brings an atmospheric twist into the murky, occult and dark theater the album is full of, and in an excellent mid-eight section the guitars later take over the lead.
With the new album Quartz prove that the long hiatus never even happened and that they’d been secretly meeting all along, at least for rehearsals, even though they hadn’t played together for almost twenty years before 2011. They play superbly, and the production has kept the nostalgia of that retro sound. The album instantly makes it clear we’re dealing with a living fossil from a distant past, which, precisely thanks to its survival and its carrying over of »musical characteristics of long-vanished times« into the new, is all the more interesting and appealing.
Quartz – Fear No Evil (official audio):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VYM9UgzNSo
Lineup
David Garner – vocals
Mick Hopkins – guitar
Geoff Nicholls – guitar, keyboards
Derek Arnold – bass
Malcolm Cope – drums
Production
Quarz
Tracklist
1. Fear No Evil
2. Rock Bottom
3. The Stalker
4. Rapture
5. Zombie Resurrection
6. Barren Land
7. Walking on Holy Water
8. Dangerous Game
9. Born to Rock the Nation
10. Riot in the City
11. Dead Man’s World
12. Scream at the Devil
